Your Green Life: "Dine Sustainably Twin Ports"

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KBJR News 1

May 2, 2013Updated May 2, 2013 at 1:13 PM CDT

Duluth, MNIf you are looking for a place to dine this week, why not try a restaurant that gets the freshest local ingredients. In this weeks Your Green Life, Meteorologist Adam Lorch shows us how to satisfy the hunger to be sustainable.

Fine dining in the Ports can now be green dining thanks to the Sustainable Twin Ports program. This week has been dubbed "Dine Sustainably Twin Ports" with many restaurants participating.

"The Sustainable Twin Ports organization wanted to celebrate and encourage restaurants in our area that were doing just really, really great things. And if the public didn't know about it yet we wanted to make sure that they were highlighted the best they could be." said Cara Lindberg, the Board President of Sustainable Twin Ports.

This first annual event hopes to bring awareness to the sustainable gems in our community.

"6 restaurants participated this first year, we're really excited about that. But what we think is really cool is that 5 out of the 6 have not gone through our 'Sustainable Twin Ports Training'." Says Lindberg, "We train businesses and organizations a strategic method, a science based method to become more sustainable."

I sat down with the General Manager of the Chester Creek Café, Kirk Bratrud, who is one participant in 'Dine Sustainably' to talk about the big push for locally grown foods.

"Many people are interested in their own lives, that follow sustainable practices, and going to a restaurant that does likewise is just a continuation of their efforts." Says Bratrud.

In the end it's a business model that will help boost the local economy and help maintain a healthy environment.

Bratrud said, "What we basically do is look at what's available and if its local, that's a good thing, if its following sustainable practices in how they grow it, that's another good thing, and we make a decision based on the ingredient whether to purchase it or not."